Opening/Closing/Holiday Bell: 11.28.08

Worker Killed In Wal-Mart Stampede (NYP) You don't have to vacation to Mumbai to be savagely murdered. Just position yourself in front of a throng of sale-crazed animals. Anytown America will probably get the job done but if you really want to up your chances, you gotta go with epicenter of batshit blood-thirsty insanity, i.e. Long Island. A 34-year old Wal-Mart employee was trampled to death this morning at a WM in Valley Stream after being knocked to the ground while trying to restrain the throng of "savages" trying to get their hands on a deeply discounted flat screen. In the same stampede, a pregnant shopper was pushed over and may have suffered a miscarriage.Update: The Post has added fairly disturbing video footage of paramedics attempting to revive the employee.Citigroup Chairman Says New Bonus Systems Aren't 'Magic Bullet' (Bloomberg) Sir Win Bischoff, speaking from experience, told a bunch of Swiss bankers in Zurich today that, "By itself, more and retention-based compensation is not the magic bullet because it certainly didn't stop us from running up very large losses...You here in Switzerland, and particularly our friends at UBS, have done a lot of good work in this area [of shrinking bonuses]. However, it's not the only answer." SWB sagaciously added that "two consecutive quarters of profits without any major writedowns at the world's major financial institutions would be enough to restore confidence," and then put the under/over on how many years before that'd happen at ten, and took the over.Firm Shuts Hedge Fund After Losses (NYT) BlueBay is shuttering its Emerging Market Total Return fund, and Satellite is said to be winding down all funds.We Hear...(Page Six) As previously reported, Billy Macklowe's wife, Julie, has been dismissed from Steve Cohen's lair. Page Six wonders if this will affect the former Sigma portfolio manager's spending habits. Not if the e-mail J to the M sent out to family, friends, and foes is to believed. According to Macklowe, she left Stamford on her own terms, and is starting a new fund, to be named JMACK Capital.Rescue Plan Strained by Lack of Staff (WSJ) Anyone need a job? Surely there are 40 unemployeds reading this. You'd have to move to Washington, and report to the follically-challenged, but at least it's work.

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

ADVERTISEMENT

Thanks for watching!

The current Treasury has so far struggled to keep up with the task of hiring enough people to handle the $700 billion financial rescue package passed by Congress in October. The man now in charge of running the Troubled Asset Relief Program, Assistant Secretary Neel Kashkari, said the department's Office of Financial Stability, with about 40 full-time employees, is operating at half-staff. Federal banking regulators, who must approve the applications from banks before they go to Treasury, said there is a backlog of unprocessed applications for relief. Outside observers said the difficulty of quickly building a qualified staff may be one reason the Treasury abandoned its original plans to use the TARP to purchase assets from financial institutions, deciding instead to inject capital into the banking system. "I don't think that was a small part of why Treasury in the end abandoned the asset-purchase program. It's very people-intensive," said Wayne Abernathy, executive vice president of financial-institutions policy and regulatory affairs at the American Bankers Association.

NEW YORK, Nov. 28-- Thousands of bars and taverns in the Big Apple will be celebrating Red Monday for the 75th anniversary of the Bloody Mary. The drink which is an American institution originated in Manhattan by a famous French bartender named Ferdinand Petiot when he came here in 1933. New York State and local officials will proclaim Bloody Mary Day and honor the granddaughter of Petiot with a citation and a Bloody Mary toast on Monday, December 1, 2008 at 11:30 a.m. in the middle of Times Square at 1552 Broadway.